Last weekend, my husband and I treated ourselves to a rare dinner out, at La Laiterie in Providence, RI. La Laiterie is my favorite type of non-fancy restaurant: a gastropub.
"Gastropub" gets thrown around a lot, but I use it to signify a place which is casual, makes their own charcuterie and artisanal cocktails, and probably has really good cheese (bonus points for foie gras). La Laiterie is, conveniently, attached to a great cheese shop: Farmstead.
Naturally, we ordered cheese and charcuterie. All excellent (though I have to admit I've had better charcuterie plates).
Charcuterie:
bresaola
a kind of ham
handmade bourbon-fennel sausage
a beef/pork/foie pate in a pastry crust
chicken rilletes
Cheeses:
Winnemere
Kunik
Coolea
Twig Farm Mixed Drum
Cashel Blue
I stopped into the cheese shop on our way out and purchased more of the Winnemere, along with some wild boar proscuitto, some Mountaineer (from Virginia, from the same people that make my favorite stinky cheese), and some Virginia bacon.
Tomorrow we're going to see a friend of mine from college play in a band in an Irish pub. I'm looking forward to a draft Guinness.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Mushrooms and Steve Martin
I spent most of the weekend repotting my tomato seedlings. You can see a full gardening update, with pictures, here. I also have a new shittake mushroom patch, which my husband is convinced is actually some sort of evil alien being.
Speaking of my husband, we went out to dinner Saturday night at La Laiterie in Providence. It wasn't in the budget, but I was feeling restless. We hadn't been out of the house on a Saturday night in quite a while. Cheese, charcuterie, wine, husband: all the elements of a good meal out. I'll write up a full review later in the week. I've been feeling particularly whipped for several days now; I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm trying to get my husband's cold, or maybe it's a seasonal malaise thing. Maybe both.
We're going to see Steve Martin tonight! Woo!
Speaking of my husband, we went out to dinner Saturday night at La Laiterie in Providence. It wasn't in the budget, but I was feeling restless. We hadn't been out of the house on a Saturday night in quite a while. Cheese, charcuterie, wine, husband: all the elements of a good meal out. I'll write up a full review later in the week. I've been feeling particularly whipped for several days now; I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm trying to get my husband's cold, or maybe it's a seasonal malaise thing. Maybe both.
We're going to see Steve Martin tonight! Woo!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
More workplace malfeasance
After yesterday's post about my former workplace shenanigans, my friend J reminded me of another Workplace From Hell. This one was long, long ago in a city far, far away, but yielded plenty of other horror stories.
Without naming names, this is when I lived in a city that started with an L and worked in a nonprofit capacity. Last week, I learned that the CEO of this nonprofit was finally being forced out, after 30 years, for public bad behavior (and a history of being an asshole.) I was only surprised that it had taken them 30 years to force him out. I could have told them 15 years ago he was an asshole.
Anyway. That was a messed-up time in my life, and it was my first professional job. My screwy personal life affected my work more than it should have, but I was also too young and naive to realize the depths of the politicking and assholery at that place. I thought all workplaces were like that.
Now, the key word in "nonprofit" is "no profit." I was making a lousy $21,000 a year, trying to raise money for chronically underfunded artistic organizations from low-paid blue-collar workers. I made pitches at 5 am to third-shift cops and factory workers, people who were making less money than I was, asking for them to please give something, anything so that their kids could get free field trips to art museums and theater matinees. What money they did give was hard-fought and hard-won, and I begrudged them none of it.
Meanwhile, the executives at this nonprofit drove Porsches and Mercedes-Benz convertibles.
It is true--to a certain extent--than in order to make money, you have to spend money. I understand that in order to schmooze a million-dollar donation from Mr. Bank President, you need to wear a nice suit to the sales pitch, and it doesn't hurt if you already go to the same country club. However. When third-shift factory workers making $8 an hour stood up in the middle of my sales pitch and said, "Why should I give $5 a week to you when [name redacted] drives a Porsche?", I had no answer for them.
(I did tell them to make sure to write on their donation that it should be earmarked for a particular group, and that way it couldn't be used for administrative costs.)
Mr. Porsche, at that point, made more than 10 times what I did. Now, to give him the benefit of the doubt, his was not an easy job. No one ever sees the value in funding arts organizations, and corporations would much rather earn community goodwill by giving money to children's hospitals or cancer research than to the opera. He managed to increase donations every year, by hook or by crook, though I don't like to imagine what went on behind closed doors. And hey, if my salary was that high, I'd be tempted to buy an expensive, high-powered sports car as well.
But not if I worked at a NONPROFIT.
He also liked to imagine that he wielded supreme executive power over the presidents of the various organizations we funded, that if it weren't for him, they would all go bankrupt overnight. He liked to yell at them, to strut during the meetings, to throw what little weight he possessed around like a blunt object, to style himself Lord Of All Fundraising.
Small Penis Syndrome, for sure.
It goes without saying that our administrative costs were higher than they should have been.
Because he was the CEO and I was the lowly whatever-my-title-was-at-the-time, we didn't have a lot of direct interaction. There was one instance when I was driving back from a weekend away, visiting friends, and got caught in a freak snowstorm. I had to get a hotel room for the night, off the interstate, and wait it out. This was a Sunday night. I called work, let them know I would be in late Monday morning, explained the circumstances, and then got to work on Monday morning as quickly as I could.
He waited until Friday, then left a message on my voice mail (hello, passive-aggressive?) explaining that he would let it slide this one time, but in future I was to make sure I did not get caught in any more snowstorms and would make it to work on time on Monday mornings. Being late due to snowstorms was unacceptable.
Did I mention I'd been making 5 am pitches to shift workers?
Did I mention that was the only time, the whole time I worked there, that I was ever late?
When I announced that I'd been accepted into graduate school, that I'd be leaving to move to New York that coming August, he sent a vice-president to inform me that since I was leaving anyway, I could just go ahead and leave right then and save them paying me through August.
When I protested, he told me--through the vice-president--that he had a "policy" of not keeping people on who wouldn't be there for the entire next fundraising season.
Then he said I hadn't worked there long enough to qualify for either severance or unemployment.
I'd been working there two years.
The next week, he bought a very expensive vintage poster to adorn his office. The cost of the poster would have easily paid my salary through August.
In tomorrow's edition of Workplaces From Hell: my boss calls me a dike! In front of the whole bar!
Without naming names, this is when I lived in a city that started with an L and worked in a nonprofit capacity. Last week, I learned that the CEO of this nonprofit was finally being forced out, after 30 years, for public bad behavior (and a history of being an asshole.) I was only surprised that it had taken them 30 years to force him out. I could have told them 15 years ago he was an asshole.
Anyway. That was a messed-up time in my life, and it was my first professional job. My screwy personal life affected my work more than it should have, but I was also too young and naive to realize the depths of the politicking and assholery at that place. I thought all workplaces were like that.
Now, the key word in "nonprofit" is "no profit." I was making a lousy $21,000 a year, trying to raise money for chronically underfunded artistic organizations from low-paid blue-collar workers. I made pitches at 5 am to third-shift cops and factory workers, people who were making less money than I was, asking for them to please give something, anything so that their kids could get free field trips to art museums and theater matinees. What money they did give was hard-fought and hard-won, and I begrudged them none of it.
Meanwhile, the executives at this nonprofit drove Porsches and Mercedes-Benz convertibles.
It is true--to a certain extent--than in order to make money, you have to spend money. I understand that in order to schmooze a million-dollar donation from Mr. Bank President, you need to wear a nice suit to the sales pitch, and it doesn't hurt if you already go to the same country club. However. When third-shift factory workers making $8 an hour stood up in the middle of my sales pitch and said, "Why should I give $5 a week to you when [name redacted] drives a Porsche?", I had no answer for them.
(I did tell them to make sure to write on their donation that it should be earmarked for a particular group, and that way it couldn't be used for administrative costs.)
Mr. Porsche, at that point, made more than 10 times what I did. Now, to give him the benefit of the doubt, his was not an easy job. No one ever sees the value in funding arts organizations, and corporations would much rather earn community goodwill by giving money to children's hospitals or cancer research than to the opera. He managed to increase donations every year, by hook or by crook, though I don't like to imagine what went on behind closed doors. And hey, if my salary was that high, I'd be tempted to buy an expensive, high-powered sports car as well.
But not if I worked at a NONPROFIT.
He also liked to imagine that he wielded supreme executive power over the presidents of the various organizations we funded, that if it weren't for him, they would all go bankrupt overnight. He liked to yell at them, to strut during the meetings, to throw what little weight he possessed around like a blunt object, to style himself Lord Of All Fundraising.
Small Penis Syndrome, for sure.
It goes without saying that our administrative costs were higher than they should have been.
Because he was the CEO and I was the lowly whatever-my-title-was-at-the-time, we didn't have a lot of direct interaction. There was one instance when I was driving back from a weekend away, visiting friends, and got caught in a freak snowstorm. I had to get a hotel room for the night, off the interstate, and wait it out. This was a Sunday night. I called work, let them know I would be in late Monday morning, explained the circumstances, and then got to work on Monday morning as quickly as I could.
He waited until Friday, then left a message on my voice mail (hello, passive-aggressive?) explaining that he would let it slide this one time, but in future I was to make sure I did not get caught in any more snowstorms and would make it to work on time on Monday mornings. Being late due to snowstorms was unacceptable.
Did I mention I'd been making 5 am pitches to shift workers?
Did I mention that was the only time, the whole time I worked there, that I was ever late?
When I announced that I'd been accepted into graduate school, that I'd be leaving to move to New York that coming August, he sent a vice-president to inform me that since I was leaving anyway, I could just go ahead and leave right then and save them paying me through August.
When I protested, he told me--through the vice-president--that he had a "policy" of not keeping people on who wouldn't be there for the entire next fundraising season.
Then he said I hadn't worked there long enough to qualify for either severance or unemployment.
I'd been working there two years.
The next week, he bought a very expensive vintage poster to adorn his office. The cost of the poster would have easily paid my salary through August.
In tomorrow's edition of Workplaces From Hell: my boss calls me a dike! In front of the whole bar!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
A little story about a place I used to work
But first, a tangent.
Yesterday I got something in the mail for DH's student loan, claiming that his monthly payment was suddenly going up by about 250%--to over $1,100. A month. I freaked right the f*#%! out.
A couple of phone calls later, we worked it out. The monthly payment is still going up, but only by about $100.
But it still put the fear of God into me. Yes, we are working actively to pay off all our debt (so that things like that don't happen). We're not there yet, though. I was hoping to take a three-day weekend in a couple of weeks and go into NYC to see my friends. Now I wonder if we shouldn't stay home and knuckle under, give that money to the debt-repayment cause instead.
The good news is that I sat down and did the math. On our current payment schedule, not including any potential raises or bonuses, we can have all the credit card and private student loan debt paid off in two years. That sounds like a long time, until you realize we'll have paid off about $68,000 worth of debt in those two years.
After that, we'll just have the two car loans (currently at 0%) and the two big student loans ($70K and $80K, respectively)--but then we'll be able to pay all of that off in another two years. Gotta love the debt snowball.
Fingers crossed there are no major setbacks between now and then.
Anyway, so money's been on the brain more than usual. I've switched to a cash payment system for gas, since gas prices are so high, and I've quit running out at lunch for errands (savings on both random spending, like milk and trips to the Salvation Army, and in gas). I've also been putting in pretty regular overtime at my job, which helps a lot.
Which brings me to where I started. I like my current workplace. It's not the job I really want, and once we get to a point where we can live on one salary, I'll happily leave it. But as sustenance jobs go, it's not bad at all. The money is good, my boss is nice to me, and they give me a lot of responsibility and autonomy. I've worked at plenty of places where I didn't get any of the above three, for less money. Plus, there's pretty regular overtime, which I actually don't mind, since the place doesn't suck my will to live.
I was emailing with my friend T earlier, discussing plans for the (maybe) upcoming trip to NYC. She and I used to work at the Workplace From Hell--the one I got laid off from in February '09, the one that sparked the roadtrip. Remember that? Anyway, she worked there for several months after I got laid off, until she got fed up and quit. And she didn't just quit--she just never showed up one morning. She went in over the weekend, cleared out her desk, and left her keys and badge on the office manager's chair, without so much as a goodbye note. Her boss was livid. It was awesome.
She's been my source of gossip about that place ever since, and let me tell you, there's been some good gossip. She told me today that my former boss just either left or was hustled out. (Schadenfreude city!) I could regale you with work horror stories from that place for days, but I'll confine it to two:
1. The Office Christmas Party. Wherein one of the partners (not my immediate superior) grabbed my ass. Intentionally, and in front of people. It started with a conversation at the party itself. The conversation was pretty innocent, but he was standing weirdly close to me, and ended it with, "But look at you now! Successful, and gorgeous!" A compliment at face value, but I'm sure he was hard-pressed to remember my name. Fine, whatever. I chalked it up to alcohol and steered clear of him for the rest of the party.
Until it came time for the after-party, when a bunch of people decamped to a bar in Midtown. I was standing in a big circle, talking to several people. He was one person over from me. Without any warning, without me even acknowledging his existence, he reached around the person between us and grabbed my ass. Hard.
I looked over at him, dumbfounded, and he was talking to the person on his other side, pretending that had not just happened.
I left immediately.
Doesn't sound like much of a story, until you realize: he had a long history of this sort of behavior, which the other partners either flatly ignored or tacitly encouraged. Secretaries were constantly complaining, and nothing had ever been done. After the layoffs, after a disastrous reorganization, I guess someone lit a potential-sexual-harassment-lawsuit fire under the office manager, and he was actually fired.
For two weeks.
The partners protested so loudly, he was rehired. At his former salary and title.
He picked right up where he left off. So much for dealing with the sexual harassment.
2. The Phone Call. As you may have guessed from the above story, the partners were almost all male. The secretaries and office managers were almost all female. When I was hired, I was told in no uncertain terms that as a secretary in that firm, I could never be anything else. I would never be promoted out of the ranks of secretary to any other department or title.
I didn't care because it was a day job. I did my freelancing on the side, at night, and used that job as a paycheck. I wasn't interested in any other position, so I didn't take umbrage.
What this meant, though, was that the partners formed a boys' club. There was breathtakingly bad behavior on a regular basis. I don't mean the "treat the secretaries as peons" sort of behavior, though there was plenty of that, too. There was yelling. Throwing things. Actual temper tantrums. Underhanded politicking. Misappropriation of funds. Open and obvious sexual harrasment. A lot of passive-aggressive stuff like forcing existing meetings out of one particular conference room because "I have more powerful clients than you do, I can only meet them in the good conference room." Overtly aggressive stuff like bragging about "bagging some broad on the train from London to Paris"--in front of your secretary, who just ordered birthday flowers for your wife. Because there was such a clear line drawn between "partners" and "everyone else," the partners got carte blanche to act like two-year-olds.
During my first month or two on the job, I neglected to set up a conference call for a meeting. I was busy, there were several things going on, and I just forgot. Ooops.
Now, a normal person would have done one of two things: either dialed into the conference call himself (like an adult), or calmly walked out of the conference room to my desk and said, "We're ready for the meeting to start. Could you dial us in now?"
Instead, my boss waited ten minutes, then flew out of there in a red-faced frothing rage and SCREAMED at me. For five solid minutes. I don't remember exactly what he said, but the jist of it was that I was retarded pond scum and that if that ever happened again, he would make sure that I was homeless by the end of the day. And he did it at my desk, which meant he was shaming me in front of the entire office. I wanted to curl up like a potato bug and die.
When he was done unloading, he turned around, went back into the conference room, and dialed himself in.
Why couldn't he have done that himself, ten minutes ago, you ask? Without screaming at me? Because then he wouldn't have had an opportunity to publicly belittle his underling, thereby cementing his (imaginary) seat of power. Oh, and because he was an asshole.
Let us contrast that to today's workplace. Here, I'm in charge of several projects. I have a laptop, and a cellphone, and a corporate AmEx card. My boss dials himself into conference calls. I'm allowed to work from home on snow days. No one yells. No one throws things, or grabs my ass, or gets off on humiliating the support staff. No one micromanages how much I spend on office supplies, or what font I use in spreadsheets, or what food I order for meetings. In short, everyone acts like adults. With manners.
Now, is it any surprise, then, that here I willingly put in overtime, that here I'm much more invested in my boss's happiness and well-being? Any surprise that the other place is going down in mismanaged flames?
You catch more flies with manners than with yelling.
CORRECTION: Apparently some of the gossip was incorrect! That guy from the first story was NOT actually rehired. From another former comrade-in-arms: "There was talk of it [rehiring] until he 1) verbally attacked the secretary who brought charges against him in her new workplace (a client of the firm's) and 2) threw several partners trying to help him out totally under the bus in an attempt to justify his grotesque behavior."
Still a jerk, though.
Yesterday I got something in the mail for DH's student loan, claiming that his monthly payment was suddenly going up by about 250%--to over $1,100. A month. I freaked right the f*#%! out.
A couple of phone calls later, we worked it out. The monthly payment is still going up, but only by about $100.
But it still put the fear of God into me. Yes, we are working actively to pay off all our debt (so that things like that don't happen). We're not there yet, though. I was hoping to take a three-day weekend in a couple of weeks and go into NYC to see my friends. Now I wonder if we shouldn't stay home and knuckle under, give that money to the debt-repayment cause instead.
The good news is that I sat down and did the math. On our current payment schedule, not including any potential raises or bonuses, we can have all the credit card and private student loan debt paid off in two years. That sounds like a long time, until you realize we'll have paid off about $68,000 worth of debt in those two years.
After that, we'll just have the two car loans (currently at 0%) and the two big student loans ($70K and $80K, respectively)--but then we'll be able to pay all of that off in another two years. Gotta love the debt snowball.
Fingers crossed there are no major setbacks between now and then.
Anyway, so money's been on the brain more than usual. I've switched to a cash payment system for gas, since gas prices are so high, and I've quit running out at lunch for errands (savings on both random spending, like milk and trips to the Salvation Army, and in gas). I've also been putting in pretty regular overtime at my job, which helps a lot.
Which brings me to where I started. I like my current workplace. It's not the job I really want, and once we get to a point where we can live on one salary, I'll happily leave it. But as sustenance jobs go, it's not bad at all. The money is good, my boss is nice to me, and they give me a lot of responsibility and autonomy. I've worked at plenty of places where I didn't get any of the above three, for less money. Plus, there's pretty regular overtime, which I actually don't mind, since the place doesn't suck my will to live.
I was emailing with my friend T earlier, discussing plans for the (maybe) upcoming trip to NYC. She and I used to work at the Workplace From Hell--the one I got laid off from in February '09, the one that sparked the roadtrip. Remember that? Anyway, she worked there for several months after I got laid off, until she got fed up and quit. And she didn't just quit--she just never showed up one morning. She went in over the weekend, cleared out her desk, and left her keys and badge on the office manager's chair, without so much as a goodbye note. Her boss was livid. It was awesome.
She's been my source of gossip about that place ever since, and let me tell you, there's been some good gossip. She told me today that my former boss just either left or was hustled out. (Schadenfreude city!) I could regale you with work horror stories from that place for days, but I'll confine it to two:
1. The Office Christmas Party. Wherein one of the partners (not my immediate superior) grabbed my ass. Intentionally, and in front of people. It started with a conversation at the party itself. The conversation was pretty innocent, but he was standing weirdly close to me, and ended it with, "But look at you now! Successful, and gorgeous!" A compliment at face value, but I'm sure he was hard-pressed to remember my name. Fine, whatever. I chalked it up to alcohol and steered clear of him for the rest of the party.
Until it came time for the after-party, when a bunch of people decamped to a bar in Midtown. I was standing in a big circle, talking to several people. He was one person over from me. Without any warning, without me even acknowledging his existence, he reached around the person between us and grabbed my ass. Hard.
I looked over at him, dumbfounded, and he was talking to the person on his other side, pretending that had not just happened.
I left immediately.
Doesn't sound like much of a story, until you realize: he had a long history of this sort of behavior, which the other partners either flatly ignored or tacitly encouraged. Secretaries were constantly complaining, and nothing had ever been done. After the layoffs, after a disastrous reorganization, I guess someone lit a potential-sexual-harassment-lawsuit fire under the office manager, and he was actually fired.
For two weeks.
The partners protested so loudly, he was rehired. At his former salary and title.
He picked right up where he left off. So much for dealing with the sexual harassment.
2. The Phone Call. As you may have guessed from the above story, the partners were almost all male. The secretaries and office managers were almost all female. When I was hired, I was told in no uncertain terms that as a secretary in that firm, I could never be anything else. I would never be promoted out of the ranks of secretary to any other department or title.
I didn't care because it was a day job. I did my freelancing on the side, at night, and used that job as a paycheck. I wasn't interested in any other position, so I didn't take umbrage.
What this meant, though, was that the partners formed a boys' club. There was breathtakingly bad behavior on a regular basis. I don't mean the "treat the secretaries as peons" sort of behavior, though there was plenty of that, too. There was yelling. Throwing things. Actual temper tantrums. Underhanded politicking. Misappropriation of funds. Open and obvious sexual harrasment. A lot of passive-aggressive stuff like forcing existing meetings out of one particular conference room because "I have more powerful clients than you do, I can only meet them in the good conference room." Overtly aggressive stuff like bragging about "bagging some broad on the train from London to Paris"--in front of your secretary, who just ordered birthday flowers for your wife. Because there was such a clear line drawn between "partners" and "everyone else," the partners got carte blanche to act like two-year-olds.
During my first month or two on the job, I neglected to set up a conference call for a meeting. I was busy, there were several things going on, and I just forgot. Ooops.
Now, a normal person would have done one of two things: either dialed into the conference call himself (like an adult), or calmly walked out of the conference room to my desk and said, "We're ready for the meeting to start. Could you dial us in now?"
Instead, my boss waited ten minutes, then flew out of there in a red-faced frothing rage and SCREAMED at me. For five solid minutes. I don't remember exactly what he said, but the jist of it was that I was retarded pond scum and that if that ever happened again, he would make sure that I was homeless by the end of the day. And he did it at my desk, which meant he was shaming me in front of the entire office. I wanted to curl up like a potato bug and die.
When he was done unloading, he turned around, went back into the conference room, and dialed himself in.
Why couldn't he have done that himself, ten minutes ago, you ask? Without screaming at me? Because then he wouldn't have had an opportunity to publicly belittle his underling, thereby cementing his (imaginary) seat of power. Oh, and because he was an asshole.
Let us contrast that to today's workplace. Here, I'm in charge of several projects. I have a laptop, and a cellphone, and a corporate AmEx card. My boss dials himself into conference calls. I'm allowed to work from home on snow days. No one yells. No one throws things, or grabs my ass, or gets off on humiliating the support staff. No one micromanages how much I spend on office supplies, or what font I use in spreadsheets, or what food I order for meetings. In short, everyone acts like adults. With manners.
Now, is it any surprise, then, that here I willingly put in overtime, that here I'm much more invested in my boss's happiness and well-being? Any surprise that the other place is going down in mismanaged flames?
You catch more flies with manners than with yelling.
CORRECTION: Apparently some of the gossip was incorrect! That guy from the first story was NOT actually rehired. From another former comrade-in-arms: "There was talk of it [rehiring] until he 1) verbally attacked the secretary who brought charges against him in her new workplace (a client of the firm's) and 2) threw several partners trying to help him out totally under the bus in an attempt to justify his grotesque behavior."
Still a jerk, though.
Friday, March 18, 2011
I have been doing things other than gardening, and thinking about gardening
OK, not really. My life's been pretty routine lately, which is why there hasn't been much of note on this blog. I go to work, work is good, I come home, I eat dinner, I watch a movie or something, I go to bed. Rinse and repeat. I'm ready for spring, but I think I've covered that. I'm hoping to get the cold crops planted outside this weekend; but the temperatures are supposed to drop into the 40s, so maybe that will have to wait.
We had the neighbors over for our first dinner party, which was very nice. Lovely people, and I felt so civilized, eating good food with fellow adults, using matching silverware and wine glasses. I spent all those years in New York building up sets of 12, in hopes of one day doing the kind of entertaining that would require sets of 12: china, red and white wine glasses, dessert wine glasses, champagne flutes, silverware, napkins, napkin rings, ramekins, espresso cups, steak knives, blah blah blah, not to mention the serving bowls and platters and pitchers and candlesticks and whatever to accompany all that. Naturally it all collected dust under my bed in New York, as I did not have the space for such entertaining.
But now! I do! With a table that will seat 12!
So seriously, please invite yourself over for dinner at your earliest convenience. I'll be tickled to use all that stuff, we'll all eat and drink well, and it's not like I have anything else going on these days.
A few updates:
I think the snow has now, finally, all melted.
Still taking the hormone-regulation pills which are supposed to lead to regular ovulation which may one day lead to pregnancy. So far as I can tell, neither regulation nor pregnancy has occurred. But at least I'm not having crippling stomach pains from the pills anymore.
My hubby went in for an invasive but routine medical test yesterday. Everything was fine. (We weren't worried, just one of those things you have to do when you get old. Still, glad everything was fine. I love my hubby.)
We have movement on the debt repayment front! I was able to officially cross two debts off the list this month, and God-willing-and-the-creeks-don't-rise I'll have another crossed off the list by this time next month. We were treading water for so long that even this small movement, with small debts, is very encouraging. I'm allowing myself to now daydream in earnest about the family compound, because maybe one day we'll actually be able to afford something of the sort.
(Granted, my daydreams involve buying a big piece of land and then inviting everyone to come build their own house on it, not buying an expensive Kennedy-esque thing with houses already built.)
I want my friends to come visit me.
That is all.
We had the neighbors over for our first dinner party, which was very nice. Lovely people, and I felt so civilized, eating good food with fellow adults, using matching silverware and wine glasses. I spent all those years in New York building up sets of 12, in hopes of one day doing the kind of entertaining that would require sets of 12: china, red and white wine glasses, dessert wine glasses, champagne flutes, silverware, napkins, napkin rings, ramekins, espresso cups, steak knives, blah blah blah, not to mention the serving bowls and platters and pitchers and candlesticks and whatever to accompany all that. Naturally it all collected dust under my bed in New York, as I did not have the space for such entertaining.
But now! I do! With a table that will seat 12!
So seriously, please invite yourself over for dinner at your earliest convenience. I'll be tickled to use all that stuff, we'll all eat and drink well, and it's not like I have anything else going on these days.
A few updates:
I think the snow has now, finally, all melted.
Still taking the hormone-regulation pills which are supposed to lead to regular ovulation which may one day lead to pregnancy. So far as I can tell, neither regulation nor pregnancy has occurred. But at least I'm not having crippling stomach pains from the pills anymore.
My hubby went in for an invasive but routine medical test yesterday. Everything was fine. (We weren't worried, just one of those things you have to do when you get old. Still, glad everything was fine. I love my hubby.)
We have movement on the debt repayment front! I was able to officially cross two debts off the list this month, and God-willing-and-the-creeks-don't-rise I'll have another crossed off the list by this time next month. We were treading water for so long that even this small movement, with small debts, is very encouraging. I'm allowing myself to now daydream in earnest about the family compound, because maybe one day we'll actually be able to afford something of the sort.
(Granted, my daydreams involve buying a big piece of land and then inviting everyone to come build their own house on it, not buying an expensive Kennedy-esque thing with houses already built.)
I want my friends to come visit me.
That is all.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
I have sprouts!
My little garden is finally showing some action! Check out pics here.
In addition, I noticed some action from the peppers this morning. Hopefully my cheap-ass, thrown-together system of shop lights on bricks, a heated mattress pad, and a space heater scrounged from work is doing the trick. I didn't want to have to sink money into a professional seed-starting setup.
I am finding that there are a lot of one-time start-up gardening costs. For example, I'm now the proud owner of a hoe. And a 100-foot hose, with spray nozzle. And a shovel. That's cutting into my budget more than I thought it would, although I guess I won't ever have to buy a hoe again.
In addition, I noticed some action from the peppers this morning. Hopefully my cheap-ass, thrown-together system of shop lights on bricks, a heated mattress pad, and a space heater scrounged from work is doing the trick. I didn't want to have to sink money into a professional seed-starting setup.
I am finding that there are a lot of one-time start-up gardening costs. For example, I'm now the proud owner of a hoe. And a 100-foot hose, with spray nozzle. And a shovel. That's cutting into my budget more than I thought it would, although I guess I won't ever have to buy a hoe again.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Vote for me!
On a whim, I entered a Recipe Redesign Contest, and it seems I'm one of 22 finalists. Be sure to check it out and vote for me!
I know my hand-drawn picture looks like kindergarten crap next to the other entries. Seriously, I had no idea professional graphic design would be involved. I took "recipe redesign" literally; looks like everyone else concentrated on the "design" part of that statement, rather than the "recipe" part.
Oh well. Vote for me anyway?
I know my hand-drawn picture looks like kindergarten crap next to the other entries. Seriously, I had no idea professional graphic design would be involved. I took "recipe redesign" literally; looks like everyone else concentrated on the "design" part of that statement, rather than the "recipe" part.
Oh well. Vote for me anyway?
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The garden has begun!
It's still not quite spring here in Massachusetts. There's still (STILL) snow on the ground, and although daytime temperatures are now consistently above freezing, night temperatures remain mostly below freezing.
But spring is coming.
The days are longer, the snow is melting off, and next weekend will be Daylight Savings Time.
So, because I can't wait for concrete evidence of spring any longer, I started my garden this weekend.
It doesn't look like much. Several containers of herbs and cold-weather crops in my chilly sunroom, thoroughly watered and awaiting germination. I turned my downstairs bathroom into a seed-starting greenhouse of sorts, by jacking the temperature up in there and laying out flats of tomato and pepper seeds. Next weekend I'll rig up some cheap metal shelving with lighting, and move the tomato and pepper seeds under the lights.
Once the snow has melted and the ground has thawed enough for me to work it, I'm going to plant more cold-weather crops (kale, spinach, arugula, chard, beets, butternut squash, cauliflower, cilantro, leeks) right away. And in May, once the danger of frost has passed, of course everything will go in the ground, including all the herbs and seedlings.
In the meantime, I've got my container garden to cultivate. Kale, spinach and arugula, plus all the herbs except for basil and dill (oregano, thyme, tarragon, chervil, sage, parsley, chives, rosemary, etc.).
I hope I'll have a little army of sprouts in the next 8-10 days. I'll keep you posted!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
I have a chipmunk
He's apparently made a little burrow under the snow. Every morning I see him poking his head out of his snow cubbyhole. Right outside the sliding glass doors in the den.
He's super-cute.
Of course, he's probably nesting inside my wall.
And he'll eat up my whole garden this spring.
And yes, there's still a good foot of snow on the ground.
But the good news is that the daytime temperatures are above freezing now, so I'm hoping the rest of that snow is not long for this world.
In the meantime, Mr. Chipmunk is super-cute.
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